Feature SS-3506
1 vote

Let Trailing zeros also act in significant digits mode
Created by Martin Kraska on 2/18/2018 7:12 PM Last Updated by Martin Kraska on 2/22/2018 1:20 PM
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 Description

It seems that in significant digits mode the trailing zeros setting is switched on by default and can't be switched off. Two proposals
1. (feature request) please allow for deactivating trailing zeros in both precision modes

2. (bug report) the trailing zero mode should display as on even if it can't be changed (check mark is missing in the context menu),

I'd recommend to have sort of toolbar which is displayed as soon as the cursor is on a result.

The toolbar could indicate the current settings of that result and allow to change them using the mouse or shortcuts

 

 

 

Of course this should affect only digits to the right of the decimal point.

 

 
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    Martin Kraska (Thursday, February 22, 2018 1:20 PM) #

Thanks a lot, I'll have to do some testing with legacy sheets.

The toolbar is actually filed as request: https://smath.info/bts/Issues/IssueDetail.aspx?id=16

    smath (Tuesday, February 20, 2018 8:44 PM) #

Ok. Trailing zeros are now available and may work together with Significant figures.

I will think regarding some UI to make it easier to work with answer options.

    Martin Kraska (Tuesday, February 20, 2018 6:39 PM) #

Thank you.

The case you describe is probably a very common case. In the default settings, significant figures mode and trailing zeros are off.

If I want significant figures mode I usually don't care about trailing zeros. I just want to avoid faking an accuracy which isn't actually there in order to have an optimal signal to noise ratio in the sheet.  Only in certain circumstances I might want them to show up. Just think of displaying integers. This would be a mess with default settings on for significant figures and trailing zeros.

What is bad with automatic interactions between options is that these are hard to catch if everything is controlled by context menu. This disapperars immediately after you select an option, thus you have no chance to see what side effects this change might have unless you re-open the context menu.

I would vote for toolbar region with indicators/switches for mode (significant figures, decimal places to the right of the dot), the actual limit, the trailing zero mode, the exponential threshold and the fraction type and the optimization setting. This also including hot keys for modifying these options. The indication/setting would be updated based on which region has focus.

Then it is easy to detect side effects in settings and access to the options is more convenient.

    smath (Tuesday, February 20, 2018 6:17 PM) #

I have chosen solution #1.

The only question I have is regarding what to do when user selects Significant Figures while Trailing Zeros is not checked. Should program automatically check Trailing Zeros in that case?

I would say yes, because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_figures#Identifying_significant_figures - "In a number with a decimal point, trailing zeros (those to the right of the last non-zero digit) are significant: 2.02000, 5.400, 57.5400."

But what I do not like is that if Trailing Zeros will be automatically checked, then what to do if user decided to turn off Significant Figures mode? Program has no information inside regarding if Trailing Zeros was set manually or automatically... I think Trailing Zeros should be automatically turned off if they are on when disabling Significant Figures mode.

What do you think?